cross posted form my hello kitty Blog.
By now only a few on this earth has not heard of how a 7th grader, Lauren Rojas, has sent Hello Kitty Plush 93,000 feet up in the stratosphere as part of a science project.

Having looked at the video, she did an excellent job of presetting her experiment during the flight, the pictures are spectacular and hello kitty in her rocket is just so cute. The rocket parachuted back to earth 47 miles from the launch point, in a tree; a likely place for a kitty. Hello Kitty is safe and sound back on Earth. The video went viral and new report has been seen all over the world and on National TV.

Not to detract from Ms. Rojas feat, some in the media is reporting this is Hello Kitty’s first trip into (or near space). That honor really should go to Melissa whose Hello Kitty has flown with The Expedition 9 Crew in 2004. I quote from part of that post.

“This is to certify that Hello Kitty accompanied the Expedition 9 Crew in their long duration space mission aboard the International Space Station. This item was flown for the wonderful Melissa (last name omitted for obvious reasons).

The Expedition 9 Crew was launched from Baikonur Cosmodrome, Kazakhstan on April 19, 2004, at 9:19 a.m., aboard the Russian Soyuz Spacecraft TMA-4, and return to Kazakhstan on October 24, 2004, at 6:35 a.m. aboard the Soyuz Spacecraft TMA-4.”

I also thought Hello Kitty as Soyuz crew mascot aka Micro Gravity Indicator some time ago.

Still way to go Lauren for Hello Kitty first altitude Balloon mission.

For a while the media of various forms of atrocity tourisms shows Like my Strange Addiction have contacted furries for their sows. Recently they turned their eyes towards Bronies and now Hello Kitty Fans. I hope my warnings were heeded about TLC.

Not all media is bad, recently while warning about a new documentary on Hello Kitty fans, they contacted me. The person was part of the large Hello Kitty board and it seem s They got Sanrio’s blessing for the project and the company no dinky operation. Being comfortable this is legit, we traded email about the project and me. I had to clear up some misconception about furries we all do not have costumes are a fetish. The issue of furries came up because that how I became a Sanrio fan is Hello Kitty and her friends are anthropomorphic and 100% innocent. I filled out a questionnaire and will see how things progress.

Of course the sex question comes up, which raises question me how to discus this with friends and the media. All one has to do is go on FA without filters. The way I look at and wrote, one tweak doesn’t define a whole fandom. Bronies , Hello Kitty Fans and Furrsy are too big and diverse of a community to allow one tweak to define us all.
While we are on the subject, Finally about furries on Taboo. If anything this shows the Old Uncle Kage strategy of telling furries to avoid and the media trying to paternalisticly control the situation will not work. Even with Athrocon it has a limited power to control the media, the media moved somewhere else to get their story. Now with a huge fandom of hundreds of thousands of furs there no way Kage can be in all places. Then there the law of averages; with large population of furries, the media will find that one tweak. The best thing furries can do is lean how the media acts and how to get their side of the story out.

Ps. A lot of my views on the media has come form years of observation while I was a Fundaments Christian, Pro Life and sympathetic to Religious Conservative Causes from 1992 to 1998 and volunteering for Republican Candidates, petition drives and precinct person form 2004 to 2010. It was my study after CSI and other stories, noting the bias an similar treatment to conservatives that brought me into the fandom.

Often I cruise the net for news concerning items that fit my interest. On search concerning Men who keep stiffed animals, I found this comment:

“I sell stuffed toys for a charity, and the vast majority of buyers are people of (ahem) middle-age or older.

Last year I called a gentleman who was in his late eighties. He had been supporting the charity for many, many years and in fact had bought over thirty of our teddy bears. So I asked whether he had given the toys away to family and friends as gifts, and he laughed.